"Republican Rob Schilling became the first member of his party to win a seat on Charlottesville’s City Council in 16 years Tuesday, taking second place behind Mayor Blake Caravati and slipping narrowly past Democrat Alexandria Searls.

Schilling, who has lived in the city for three years and has never held elective office, beat Searls by 84 votes in Tuesday’s election. He finished 359 votes behind Caravati, a Democrat who won all but one precinct.

Independent Stratton Salidis, who opposes large new road construction and favors self-directed education for city students, earned 614 votes, nearly doubling his total from the 2000 council election.

In all, 4,375 people turned out for the election — 22 percent of registered voters in the city. There were 115 write-in votes, though information on who received them was not available Tuesday.

Democrats who attended a reception at The Nook after the results came in exhibited a mix of relief at Caravati’s victory and shock at Searls’ narrow loss.

“I’m very surprised,” Caravati said. “It’s a bittersweet victory for me. Alex really worked hard, I think the party worked hard, but obviously we didn’t work hard enough. The low turnout was a major factor here.”

In a room crowded with prominent local Democrats, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, could be heard offering solace to the mayor. “It’s a wakeup call,” he told Caravati.

Even before he arrived at the reception, Caravati called Schilling to offer congratulations. Minutes later, he brushed aside suggestions that the Republican’s often-harsh criticism of city government in recent months would cause lingering bad feelings.

“He was campaigning,” Caravati said. “He did a good job. For someone who doesn’t have the depth of civic affairs that maybe Alex and I did, he ran a great campaign.”

An emotional Searls left the gathering a short time after the vote totals arrived, offering no comment [to Jake Mooney] on the race.

Across town at a Republican gathering at Lord Hardwicke’s restaurant, a beaming Schilling promised to work for higher teacher salaries, tougher law enforcement and an elected city School Board. He thanked Charlottesville’s relatively small Republican base and credited crossover Democrats and independents with pushing him to victory.

“As I was out at all these different places, I can’t tell you how many people I talked to who said, ‘I have never voted for a Republican,’ or ‘I haven’t voted in a City Council race in 16 years,’” Schilling said.

He beat Caravati only in the traditionally conservative Walker precinct, and there by only two votes, 560 to 558. Voter turnout in the precinct was the highest, though, at 38 percent, in sharp contrast with turnout numbers of 14 percent in the traditional Democratic strongholds of Venable and Tonsler.

Like Caravati, Schilling downplayed the tension among candidates that became visible at times during the final weeks of the council race. In particular, Schilling frequently slammed city government as inefficient, short-sighted and unresponsive to the will of city residents.

“I don’t think I was ever personally critical of them,” he said from a corner of a packed room at Lord Hardwicke’s. “If I don’t like somebody’s ideas, I try not to make it a personal issue, and I appreciate that on the other side.”

Of Caravati’s phone call, Schilling recalled, laughing, “He told me I’ve got two days off and then I’m going to have to sit down and start getting up with the issues.”

Toward that end, Schilling said, “I intend to sit down with people that are experts or knowledgeable on both sides of many issues and listen to their opinions and run them through my own filter.”

The last Republican to win a seat on the council was the late Darden Towe, who won in 1986 and was defeated in 1990 by David J. Toscano.

Toscano, a Democratic former mayor and three-term council member whose seat Schilling will fill in July, was cautiously optimistic Tuesday night about his own successor.

“You have to hope that he’s going to be willing to work with the other councilors for the best of the city,” Toscano said. “He’ll have different views, of course, and different emphases, but historically the best councils work as a team.”

“Given what I saw in the campaign and how civil it was, I think there’s a reasonable chance that all these folks are going to be able to work together,” he added.

“You never know until you sit down at the table.” " (Jake Mooney, The Daily Progress, May 8, 2002)